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panther question

S

subrama6

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jun 24, 2003
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i'm a potential switcher that has a question before i make the leap (btw - i'm getting a powerbook, so my guess is that this question will be relevant sometime in the not too distant future)

so if i get a g4 now, and then panther comes out and is optomized for a 64 bit machine, how well will it run, if at all, on a 32 bit machine?
 
Re: panther question

Originally posted by subrama6
i'm a potential switcher that has a question before i make the leap (btw - i'm getting a powerbook, so my guess is that this question will be relevant sometime in the not too distant future)

so if i get a g4 now, and then panther comes out and is optomized for a 64 bit machine, how well will it run, if at all, on a 32 bit machine?
Click to expand...

Panther aboslutley will have to run on 32 bit machines because only perhaps 1/4 of apple;s machines will use the G5's (only the powermacs). iBooks (still on a G3), iMacs, eMacs and powerbooks all still use 32 bit processors. Apple can't simply stop development of the OS for those machines for the next year or two until they are all on the G5. So what I'm saying is that panther will not and cannot be a 64 bit OS. it may have some kind of G5 optimization like jaguar has for altivec, but it won't be a G5 exclusive.
 
Panther 32 and 64 bit

I assume the installer will recognize if it will need to install the 32 (G4) or 64 (G5) bit version of Panther. Both (I Expect) versions will be on same CD. I believe all major software applications will become available in two versions as well.
 
Re: Panther 32 and 64 bit

Originally posted by matthew24
I assume the installer will recognize if it will need to install the 32 (G4) or 64 (G5) bit version of Panther. Both (I Expect) versions will be on same CD. I believe all major software applications will become available in two versions as well.
Click to expand...
Just needed to make some *slight* corrections. The 32 bit version is for both G3 and G4. And also, install discs will most likely be a DVD, not a CD.
 
Re: Panther 32 and 64 bit

Originally posted by matthew24
I assume the installer will recognize if it will need to install the 32 (G4) or 64 (G5) bit version of Panther. Both (I Expect) versions will be on same CD. I believe all major software applications will become available in two versions as well.
Click to expand...

frankly to me this seems very unlikely. First, apple has to then test and support 2 different version of the OS. That's expensive. Also, OS X is rather large, would two versions of everything even fit on a single Cd. I doubt it. They could have two CD's, but then people might get confused. Given the fact that the G5 supports a 32 bit OS with no problem, I don't see any real need to use a 64 bit OS when all it will do is cause problems.

Personally I don't expect to see a fully 64 bit OS until all of apple's line has been moved to 64 bit CPU's. I could totally be wrong, but thats what I think.

As for programs, this will happen eventually, but its going to take a long time. No company wants to test and support 2 versions of their programs just for a new machine that won't even be the main part of their business for a while (installed customer base is quite a bit larger than G5 sales will be)
 
paanther will be the 1st 64bitb S, but there are still even G3 users using panther, and that would piss anyone off if they made panther 64bit only.
 
Re: Panther 32 and 64 bit

Originally posted by matthew24
I assume the installer will recognize if it will need to install the 32 (G4) or 64 (G5) bit version of Panther. Both (I Expect) versions will be on same CD. I believe all major software applications will become available in two versions as well.
Click to expand...
I was kinda confused by this too... so I asked one of the Apple engineers (a compiler guy) at WWDC...

Basically Panther is almost entirely 32 bit. There is no 64 bit version. Period. For that I assume we're waiting for OS 11 (or XI, or X++ or whatever they call it).

In a nutshell, what Panther does have (and I assume this is the big difference in 10.2.7 too) is that the VMM (virtual memory manager) has 64 bit memory addressing support... but each app still only gets access to up to 2GB just as today. However, if you get a G5 that can accomodate up to 8GB in the box, so you could then have 4 processes each getting 2GB each.

Its not a great story if you want to run an uber-database (though I assume there are APIs to get access to memory beyond your 2GB limit, much like the VLM support you have in some versions of Windows), but its a very nice solution for your average apps (more memory -> less swapping -> higher performance)
 
from what i understand - panther is sorta like jag.

Jag is able to run on G3 + G4
Jag has altivec in it
G3 has no altivec
G4 does
Jag does not use altivec stuff when on G3

Panther is able to run on 32bit and 64bit
Panther has 64bit code in it
G3+G4 are 32bit
G5 is 64bit
Panther does not use 64bit stuff when on a 32bit machine.

Speculation (nice though):
All apps are released as 64bit. Panther does hard work to kmake them work on 32bit machine if needed.

Known:
Photoshop etc. have altivec on them
They still run on a G3 dont they? Yes.
 
Originally posted by benixau
from what i understand - panther is sorta like jag.

Jag is able to run on G3 + G4
Jag has altivec in it
G3 has no altivec
G4 does
Jag does not use altivec stuff when on G3

Panther is able to run on 32bit and 64bit
Panther has 64bit code in it
G3+G4 are 32bit
G5 is 64bit
Panther does not use 64bit stuff when on a 32bit machine.

Speculation (nice though):
All apps are released as 64bit. Panther does hard work to kmake them work on 32bit machine if needed.

Known:
Photoshop etc. have altivec on them
They still run on a G3 dont they? Yes.
Click to expand...
The compiler engineer specifically said "Panther's memory manager uses some G5 instructions to support large memory, but the OS itself is still 32 bit".

My specific question to him (how we got onto this) was around "if I make a 64 bit version of my app, can the app bundle contain a 32 and 64 bit version side by side (so I can have one download for 32-bit and 64-bit clients)". At first he (and the guy I originally asked, that pointed me to this guy) didn't understand the question, so I said "gcc 3.3 does support 64-bit doesn't it?"... then the light came one and that when he told me Panther was still 32-bit (ie. you don't write 64-bit apps for it)
 
99% of the code will be the same. For performance reasons, a few procedures will exist in G3, G4, and G5 versions. This is not even an installer thing because code is "selected" at runtime.

Today, there are only a few applications that require a G4 and would not run on a G3 because they rely on altivec. G5 will be much the same.
Maybe future versions of some pro apps will require a G5.
 
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